House team instructs council to rewrite report in 2 weeks

By Sylivester Domasa

4th April 2012

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LAAC deputy chairman Idd Azzan

The parliamentary Local Authorities Account Committee (LAAC) yesterday instructed the Babati district council to rewrite and submit its fresh report to the Controller and Auditor General (CAG) in two weeks’ time from today.

Issuing the committee’s order in Dar es Salaam, LAAC deputy chairman Idd Azzan (CCM) said the report had so many technical errors and had poor financial analysis.

He noted that some of the projects submitted with poor financial analysis included the Tanzania Social Action Fund (Tasaf), Urban Development and Environment Management (Udem), the Global Fund and District Agriculture Development Plans (Dadps).

“We have also found in the report that, the council has bought tractors but there are no clear transactions. They also mention to have been supporting agricultural projects without indicating how much was spent by the council. So, the committee has ordered the Babati district council to be very careful when writing its reports. It is advised to communicate with experts or members of the committee to report writing criteria,” he said.

The committee told the Babati district council to ensure it worked on committee recommendations.

LAAC chairman Augustine Mrema (TLP) said further that the committee had decided to order the Babati council to verify its information on the submitted report before hading it to the government.

He said it was a warning to the entire council and that next time it should submit a clean report.

“These people have no good preparation. We, however, have excused them from penalty,” said Mrema.

Earlier Mrema said since the committee started its examination for local government accounts a number of district councils ended up being warned by a written copy and others getting a penalty of suspending 15 per cent of their monthly salaries.

For his part, Babati District Council chairman Muhammed Farah Omari promised to work on the weaknesses identified by LAAC.

He told the committee that part of the weakness were due to the fact that the council had no a specific permanent building for keeping records.